22 Comments
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Jeni Hankins's avatar

I am very grateful for the boisterous and neglected rosemary that grows in several dilapidated front gardens on our street in London. That someone planted them at all shows that a long time ago a resident had some interest in the front garden of these multi-family houses. Now they are left entirely to themselves and jostle with recycling and trash bins and crumbling walls. I like to pick a few bits as I walk by and keep them in my pocket. Then I’ll be riding the train and put my hand to my nose and smell the rosemary. It’s like a secret happiness in my pocket.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

🌿💛🌿

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

Oh--both so gorgeous. Thank you for these.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

So welcome, Margaret Ann! 🌿

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Barbara Webb's avatar

Rosemary - very aromatically vocal

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

... as we know! Love to you, fellow auntie and fellow gardener.

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Ann Collins's avatar

"I would enjoy forever

the sunlit humming garden where enough rosemary

blossomed, to keep that hive in honey."

Fragrant...buzzing with pleasure!

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Weston Parker's avatar

I agree exactly and that blue collar Puccini thing, so much fun. Terrific.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thanks, Wes! 🌿

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

So fragrant!💛🌿

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Kim Hardy's avatar

I grow Rosemary every summer and then use the leaves to make Rosemary shortbread cookies for Christmas.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Oh, delicious! 💛🌿

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Sherri Maurin's avatar

I love Rosemary and wish you could have walked the path alongside the corral of cows and fields of olives where it abounds!

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thanks, Sherri. One of the delightful thing about rosemary is how many places it thrives and abounds -- including the city, where I keep discovering it everywhere. 💛🌿

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Elizabeth Beggins's avatar

The first of these poems was particularly moving for me, the juxtaposition of you snipping herbs against others struggling against darkness in other parts of the world, the powerful voices of survival.

I have two container-bound rosemary plants that, while alive, are not exactly happy. As you say, their roots have filed more than one complaint with HR about being trapped. Who can blame them?

I so appreciate you highlighting the strength of these plants, Elizabeth, in form, flavor and metaphor. I might try putting mine in the ground this fall, and hope they rebound. Seems like good timing. If I can help it, I'll never go without one. I love having them nearby, along with thyme and, usually, sage though I've been having trouble keeping those alive. But I keep trying.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thank you so much, Elizabeth. I wrote the first poem a few weeks into the war in Ukraine, and the contrasts and messages of struggle and strength and survival that you mention were much on my mind.

Thinking of you and your herb garden! 💛🌿

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Francesca's avatar

aaaahhhh this is SO GOOD:

"as if some plain and weathered worker on an hourly wage

tipped back his head unbidden, poured out Puccini

in purest loudest tenor, making a theatre of garden,

kitchen, stockpot, roasting pan..."

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

🙏🏼💛🌿

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Kim's avatar

Also drought tolerant; maybe drought needy, because the one we planted in spring quickly died, and I suspect the rain.

So it seems like it’s putting up with bad conditions but from its own point of view those are nice conditions.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

It doesn't like sitting with its feet wet, for a fact. PNW may need a different resistance icon. 🌿

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Pamela Leavey's avatar

Love these two poems. Rosemary and lavender are my two favorite scents. Rosemary to cook with, lavender to wear and sprinkle on my linens.

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

🙏🏼💛🌿

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